


'till human voices wake us, and we drown

by rhllors



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, Pathos, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 21:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhllors/pseuds/rhllors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Her name is Saoirse." he murmurs so quietly that the sound is lost in her skin. "It means freedom." Katniss thinks of the recorded screams of Annie Cresta. "One day, we're gonna fly away."</p>
            </blockquote>





	'till human voices wake us, and we drown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mockyrfears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockyrfears/gifts).



Finnick's albatross is like nothing she's ever seen in District 12. It has the most beautiful feathers, with smudges of gold from around its beak curve down its majestic neck, fading away into the black and white feathers of its body. Katniss hasn't seen it spread its wings, yet, because it spends most of its time curled on his shoulder, like it's nesting, trying to push its way back into his body. Haymitch tells her that no one knows its name-- _surprising_ , he'd slurred, _someone so free_ (free come out like a curse, a condemnation) _keeps his soul so close_.

Ignis, who had screamed for her when they'd been separated when she entered the arena, who has remained silent when other people surround them since they'd been reunited, stares at the bird like it's an enigma to be unravelled. Katniss always thought Finnick Odair's daemon would be something flashier, something broader, something a little bit more majestically beautiful; like a tiger. Back in the training arena, she'd seen Cato's bear, Glimmer's asp, Thresh's lion. Rue's had been a rabbit with--

Katniss grimaces. She feels like she's swallowed an ocean and Peeta's hand on her shoulder feels like an anchor weighing her down.

 

 

It hasn't quite sunk in that they're back again. The arena is a jungle and death clings to the hazy heat that fills it.

The Capitol allowed their daemons to accompany them, this time, and Katniss does not want to dwell on why. It is a both a blessing and curse: blessed because with their souls, she and Peeta, Johanna and Finnick, Wireless and Betee, they're harder, stronger. They don't have the screaming chasm of pain of the Separation which debilitates and envelopes when you enter that tube and doesn't let down until you leave. However, their strength is is also the strength of Cashmere, Gloss, Brutus, and Enobaria. Katniss can't imagine they were much attached to their souls anyway.

They can't risk a fire and they drink water tapped from a tree. Peeta is dying. There's nothing anyone can do about it.

Ignis sits by Peeta, as if his very presence may bring him back to them. She's not sure whether it's love, desperation or a heady mix of the two. She still isn't sure what worse. _Love. Desperation. Desperately in love. Loving desperately._

Maybe it's neither.

"Why don't you send yours out to scan the area?" Katniss finds herself saying at Finnick, head gesturing roughly at the bird that's still perched on his shoulder, unruffled. They could be at any Capitol party, for all this bird cares. Finnick Odair doesn't have scruples.

"They know what--" the name seems on the tip of his tongue, before he catches himself. His eyes flicker. They have an audience. "--what mine is, what it looks like. They'll be watching the skies. If they--" It's a perfectly reasonable response. If it is caught--

Katniss would rather not think about what would happen if it was caught. Some things are too terrible to contemplate.

"Yeah. Sorry." she says, a little tersely, staring back at Ignis, wrapping her hands around her knees and pulling herself tightly together. "Stupid question." _Maybe_ , she thinks, closing her eyes, _maybe if I close my eyes hard enough, I'll be back at home. Braiding Prim's hair, eating rabbit soup with Gale and Mother_. Suddenly, there's a warm heat against her back, a face resting on the crevice between her neck and body.

Finnick smells like the sea.

(She can't imagine what they're saying in the Capitol.)

"Her name is Saoirse." he murmurs so quietly that the sound is lost in her skin. "It means freedom." Katniss thinks of the recorded screams of Annie Cresta. "One day, we're gonna fly away."

Katniss has seen and done so many terrible things over her life, but, she thinks, nothing will haunt her more than this. 

Her shoulder is damp from tears.

She turns her head, so that he has to resurface from her. For a moment, there's nothing else in the world than the look in his eyes; a connection formed in the depths of hell. Quickly, and without thought, Katniss presses her lips against his. It's chaste, there's a negligible amount of force behind it. His hands curl around her back, hers around his neck, their faces rest on each other, lips no longer touching, but simply nose to nose. She can't vocalise what she wants to tell him-- _I don't love Peeta, but if he dies, I'll die. I support you. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I_ \--but she knows that he understands.

(For the first time, she will realise absently, much later, is that for the first time she sees Saoirse off of Finnick's shoulder. She had hopped off his shoulder, and rested between Ignis' ears.

There's warmth.)

 

 

Finnick is fighting the lizard muttation but he is a loosing. The sewer is dark and dirty and too far from the sea--Saoirse is screaming, wings flapping, beak snapping, but they're not strong enough.

Katniss is screaming too, and that stirs something in him to fight harder and faster than he has ever before. There's so much he hasn't done, hasn't seen. Finnick has held his son, told Annie he loves her enough times, told Katniss he loves her _at all_ , that he wants to kiss her and hold her and love her and fuck her, tell her that everything's going to be okay in the end. He's looking up, out the sewer, and catches her eyes, the freedom of the sky behind her, and he's flying--

There's a haze of gold. 

Soul, evacuate.

 

 

Katniss never saw Saoirse fly.

**Author's Note:**

> for stephie's wonderful [daemon fic-a-thon](http://mockyrfears.livejournal.com/5920.html)
> 
> title from t.s. eliot's _the love song of j. alfred prufrock_  
>  **ignis** : latin, fire. citing leviticus and deuteronomy, the malleus maleficarum states that wolves are either agents of god sent to punish sinners, or agents of the devil sent with god's blessing to harass true believers to test their faith  
>  **saoirse** : gaelic, freedom. albatrosses are often metaphors of a psychological burden that feels like a curse.


End file.
